JMMA Weekend Review: New HEAT champ, Yoshinaga wins at Outsider

HEAT 33 – 1 day 4-man Bantamweight Tournament

HEAT in Nagoya held a one day tournament between four bantamweight fighters in order to crown the winner. Newly belted Grachan champ Motonobu Tezuka, Gladiator Bushido Champ Ryohei Tsujikawa, Demolition Champ Kazuma Sone, and grappling traveller Alan Yoshihiro Yamaniha

Motonobu worked through Yamaniha in the first draw of the brackets, and Sone defeated Tsujikawa to face each other in the finals. In a bout of belt against belt for another belt saw Motonobu work to finish with a triangle in the first round. This turned around a difficult post-UFC run for the smothering strongman, once Pancrase’s number one contender, as he earned his second belt in as many outings.

The Outsider Lightweight Champ Keinosuke Yoshinaga

RINGS The Outsider 32 – Lightweight Championship

With 30 fights on the card and even more tattoos, The Outsider 32 carried out another rambunctious offering by RINGS leader Akira Maeda. This event saw the 65-70k title defense by Shinya Kumazawa against Keinosuke Yoshinaga. Kamazawa had 4 wins in Outsider and Kumazawa – while long his most recent outing to Teppei Hori vis armlock – had a big wave of support riding him into the fight. He paid it back in spades with a first round knock out at 2:47.

In the co-main event, Ryo Asami completely negated the heavy hands of Takahiro Owaki by landing a heel hook tap at just 25 seconds into the first round. Elsewhere on the card, guys with names like Dark Tatsuji, Carrion Crow, and Kiretaknife battled it out to 11 KOs, 9 subs, 8 decisions, and 2 draws. The full results complete with epic profile pictures are now tallied up on the official website here.

DEEP Kanazawa Yoshiyuki Katahira

DEEP Kanazawa Impact

Hometown hero Yoshiyuki Katahira went the distance against Toshikazu Suzuki in the main event of DEEP’s foray to Kanazawa, Club Barbarian home. All three judges awarded Katahira the decision. CB rookie Yukinori Okamura also came out on top of Takeshi Ogane. We have no idea how the fighter named Marshmallow Man fared.